(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to a vehicle employed in the rehabilitation of water wells. Specifically, the present invention pertains to a vehicle mounting a 3,000 gallon-capacity tank and a 135 horsepower hydraulic pump connected in fluid communication with the tank through a network of fluid conducting conduits that together provide an apparatus that transports all of the necessary equipment to a water well location for rehabilitation of the well.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Water wells are formed by drilling the well downward through the ground to a certain depth where the well intersects one or more aquifers or water bearing stratum of permeable rock, sand, or gravel. Water in the aquifer(s) flows through the permeable rock, sand, or gravel and fills the drilled well to a certain depth. As water is pumped from the well, water continues to flow through the spaces between the permeable rock, sand, or gravel back into the well. A well's efficiency is rated by its specific capacity (SC) which is defined as the ratio of gallons per minute of water being pumped from the well divided by the number of feet of draw down or the number of feet the water level decreases in the well.
A new well constructed properly should have an efficiency approaching 100%. However, after a well has been used over a period of time, the spaces between the permeable rock, sand, or gravel in the aquifer(s) intersected by the well will often become blocked with dissolved minerals in the ground water traveling through the aquifer(s) or blocked biologically, for example by iron bacteria that feed on amounts of iron carried in the ground water. The blockage of the spaces between the rock, sand, or gravel creates an increased resistance to the flow of water through the aquifer(s) to the well and results in a lower pumping level of the water in the well and subsequently, a lower specific capacity (SC) of the well. Should the situation go unremedied and allowed to continue without well cleaning being performed, the specific capacity of the well could be reduced to the point that the well would no longer be useful requiring a new well to be drilled.
Water wells require periodic maintenance and cleaning to maintain their specific capacities. Well rehabilitation is the art of thoroughly cleaning mineral and biological deposits from the well to increase the specific capacity of a deteriorated well.
In the prior art, mechanical well cleaning methods and acid injections have been used to rehabilitate water wells. However, in many situations these have proven to be ineffective. This is due in part because the mechanical methods or chemical treatments that are used to remove or dissolve the minerals and bacteria causing the blockage of the aquifer only reach the face of the blocked aquifers. High pressure injection procedures have been developed to overcome this shortcoming by using sustained injection pressures of cleaning chemicals. The high pressure injection of the chemicals forces the chemical treatment to all sections of the well system and adjacent areas of the aquifers feeding ground water to the well. Injection rates from less than 100 gallons per minute (GPM) to over 4,000 GPM have been found to be necessary to effectively clean the wide range of potable water and industrial wells existing in the United States. The equipment necessary to perform the high pressure injection procedure at first involved the use of a 1,000 gallon tank, a 25 HP electric injection pump, a generator to power the pump, and a plurality of lengths of hoses and hose couplings required to connect the tank with the pump and connect the pump with the well. This prior art method of high pressure injection well cleaning was later improved to include a 2,000 gallon capacity tank and a 75 HP injection pump. However, these prior art methods all involved an external power source and proved to be inefficient due to the necessity of transporting the separate tank, generator, pump, and hose lengths and couplings to the well site and due to the constant changing of valves, fittings, and hoses required in rehabilitating the well.